Solidarity Must Be Defended is an ongoing research project by Naeem Mohaiemen on the influence of Eastern Bloc countries on decolonization processes in Africa and Asia.
The interim result of the project was a digest of articles, Solidarity Must Be Defended (tranzit.hu / Van Abbe Museum / SALT / Tricontinental), published by Mohaiemen in collaboration with the Hungarian curator and editor of the tranzit.hu portal Eszter Szakács in 2020. The digest also included materials collected during the Field Research program.
The essays presented in the publication examined various aspects of cooperation and mutual assistance between the countries of the socialist bloc: diplomatic and economic agreements and intercultural and geopolitical constructions manifested through the official narratives. The idea for the anthology arose after the release of a special issue of Mezosfera magazine entitled Refractions of Socialist Solidarity. The issue was prepared in Budapest, edited by Eszter Szakács, based on the results of meetings of the Hungarian reading group that studied the Mohaiemen film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017). Among other topics, Mohaiemen explored the features of Soviet soft power in Asian countries. He paid special attention to the activities of Soviet publishing houses engaged in the export of literature to India and Pakistan. By stimulating the development of the book industry in these countries, the USSR also contributed to the spread of socialist ideas in their political space.
During the Field Research program, Naeem Mohaiemen collected a number of archival documents and interviews with Indian translators into Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Urdu, and other Indian languages, who collaborated with the Soviet publishing houses Progress, Mir and Raduga, which were focused on the production of books for export. These materials will be used in future art works and academic papers by Mohaiemen as part of the project Solidarity Must Be Defended.
Status: 2020–2021
Researcher: Naeem Mohaiemen
